Booth / Cinema as "Accidental Museums"

[Tj Hopland]

That simplex setup has a drive in base. You can tell because the front pivot is tall allowing for an up angle. The standard base that was very short and could only get a couple degrees up angle. Its last home may not have been in a drive in because it seems pretty short. Typically the drive in versions had the standard or even extra tall center section to get things at at least a comfortable working height or even higher to maybe clear people/cars in front of the booth. If you then went level or down on one of these bases the lamp got kinda high and you were no longer at standard port heights.

Maybe the drive in put in a platter which freed up this machine and the center section was cut down to make it with the drive in top more of a standard height in anticipation of using it in a more indoor application.

You can see by the back of that lower magazine that its a Simplex XL. Those were kinda cool because they had a weight compensated take up clutch setup. The spindle was on a gimbal pivot sort of thing and there was a drum attached to the back instead of the usual clutch disc surface. The drive belt came down to a gear pulley that then drove what looked like a platter drive puck that rode inside the drum. When the reel was empty/light it didn't press very hard against the puck. As the reel filled and got heavier it would put more pressure and increase the tension. Not really a big deal for 2000' reels but was useful for larger ones. By the time I was working with them parts like the drive pucks were NLA so it was hard to keep em going.

The Knisley current minimizer attached to the base is also an interesting piece. Its got a big old Nichrome resistor element in it and then I think what looked like a automotive starter solenoid if I'm remembering correctly. There was also an Ampride? time delay tube in there. I don't remember if the timing started when power was applied or if there was current or voltage sensing that started the timing. Initially the resistor was in series with the arc thus acting as a current limiting resistor and limiting the current. Idea was limiting the current made the striking of the arc less violent for everything involved. Less stress on the rectifying elements and even the carbons. Higher current setups even if you had a good technique you tended to blow chunks out of the carbons which could end up on your reflector and caused an uneven burn at first.

[Ryan Gallagher]

These look like the sort of breaker that a grim faced executioner would pull with Humphrey Bogart in the electric chair in the closing scene of a 1930s Warner Bros gangster movie!

Indeed. Would be a fun halloween prop if you wanted to move the damn thing.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I guess I should have come down to see the place before you guys started the remodel

None of the stuff you really care about went away (yet). There is talk of like for like upgrading our JJs to give us some spares to keep them running. But hard to tell if that is gonna happen or in what time frame, separate project from the architectural remodel.

But we don't have building access now until commissioning starts. So quite a wait.

[Leo Enticknap]

Indeed. Would be a fun halloween prop if you wanted to move the damn thing.

They're pretty close. Frame grab from Two Seconds (1932):

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I'm guessing that the control panel was dreamt up by some set designers in Burbank having some morbid fun (three light bulbs = three phases?) rather what was actually at Sing Sing, but I guess you never know.

...and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938):

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[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm guessing that the control panel was dreamt up by some set designers in Burbank having some morbid fun (three light bulbs = three phases?) rather what was actually at Sing Sing, but I guess you never know.

I guess I wouldn't want to be in the room when they activated one of their two "Double Dissolvers" at Sing Sing. I guess the double dissolver saves the casket and funeral at the end of the procedure?

[Ryan Gallagher]

To be fair, we think those are pretty unique, but I bet in the era that was just a standard throw switch for any big load in most industries. At least ours had fuses (granted if the blew up they were taking you out too).

Edit to add: But the level of attention to detail in those installs back in the day still astounds me. They had custom parts with recessed labels that were probably hand painted for the labeling. These days we chicken scratch or slap a label maker label next to a breaker and call it a day. They thought of their industry equipment as much more permanent than we realize with hindsight. Or they just cared more! (probably both)

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's from a time where craftsmen still cared about their work...

I must be honest, every time I see some sloppy, crooked label attached to something, I also die a little bit inside. But yeah, nothing we do today is really made to last, just look at how buildings are built nowadays... it used to be brick and mortar or cast concrete, now it's aluminium strutting and some drywall... equipment is made to last as long as the warranty lasts... nobody cares about putting on a label on straight anymore...

[Leo Enticknap]

…granted if they blew up they were taking you out too).

I noticed that the two executioners in those shots both appeared to be wearing seriously heavy duty insulating gloves, presumably to ensure that they didn’t execute themselves along with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. Given the uninsulated blades of both those high voltage breakers and Ryan’s, I’m guessing that these gloves had to be mandatory for anyone operating them, even under less dramatic circumstances than is shown in those movies.

[Harold Hallikainen]

On "I'm guessing that the control panel was dreamt up by some set designers in Burbank having some morbid fun (three light bulbs = three phases?) rather what was actually at Sing Sing, but I guess you never know.", I think the light bulbs were a standard method of getting a power plant to sync up with the grid before throwing it on line. The plant frequency would be adjusted until the lamps very slowly moved from off to full on. The switch was thrown when the lamps were off since the plant was then phase synced to the grid. The plant fuel could then be upped to start dumping power into the grid.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

That RCA Dubber in the fist image at the start of this thread is a VERY are rare. That was used for Natural Vision films like House of Wax. Almost all those installations used Westrex dubbers because the playback was much higher quality. The photo shows the Westrex Dubber.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

On "I'm guessing that the control panel was dreamt up by some set designers in Burbank having some morbid fun (three light bulbs = three phases?) rather what was actually at Sing Sing, but I guess you never know.", I think the light bulbs were a standard method of getting a power plant to sync up with the grid before throwing it on line. The plant frequency would be adjusted until the lamps very slowly moved from off to full on. The switch was thrown when the lamps were off since the plant was then phase synced to the grid. The plant fuel could then be upped to start dumping power into the grid.

Another time you'd see three light bulbs in an industrial setting is when the power there is three phase ungrounded Delta. The three lamps, wired in Wye with the centerpoint grounded, will normally all be lit if there are no ground faults on any of the Delta phases. If one lamp goes out, it indicates a ground fault in that Delta Phase. Everything in the plant will still operate normally... until a second Delta phase goes to ground. At that point, you have a Phase to Phase short circuit and very expensive sounds and explosions happen. So as soon as one lamp goes out, they MUST locate and repair the fault before a second one can occur.

This video:

explains it. (He uses resistor symbols for the lamps.)

[Harold Hallikainen]

Thanks! In the field, I have only seen delta with a grounded centertap. That gives 120VAC one line to neutral, 120VAC on another line to neutral, 240 VAC between these two lines (good for single phase loads) and the "wild phase" that is 208 volts to neutral. More commonly, I have seen wye sources where each line is 120VAC to neutral, and line to line is 208VAC. I've also heard of, but never seen, corner grounded dlltas. I really do not like ungrounded transformer secondaries (floating secondaries) like the ungrounded delta discussed above. There is nothing preventing capacitive coupling or other leakage between the many kV primary and the secondary causing the ungrounded secondary to end up many kV above ground.

I've generally worked with wye sources with delta loads.

The relationship between delta and wye is really interesting! I worked on a Collins AM broadcast transmitter that had two sets of plate transformer secondaries. One was wired delta into a full wave rectifier, and the other was wired wye into a full wave rectifier. With a 60 Hz line full wave rectification of 60 Hz give you a ripple frequency of 180 Hz. But, if you combine a full wave rectified wye source and a full wave rectified delta source, the ripple frequency goes up to 360 Hz, which is VERY easy to filter out. That was the quietest AM transmitter I ever saw. The noise exceeded FM transmitter requirements.